Release Blast -- Adjunct Lovers by Liz Crowe

When Ross
and Elisa open their new business in Detroit, they believe they’ve embarked on
a dream life, complete with their beloved, precocious daughter. But owning and
running a restaurant is not for the faint of heart, and Elle quickly becomes
laser-focused and obsessed, while Ross spends his days consulting, or
concocting new beers on his pilot system—and wondering why she won’t agree to
set a date for their wedding. When their restaurant—named “Komfort” for its
focus on the comfort foods of various cultures—is featured on a nationally
televised tour of hot new eateries, its popularity shoots into the
stratosphere, and Elle’s stress level reaches a breaking point.

Faced with
a mutual inability to communicate beyond their robust sex life, Ross issues an
ill-considered ultimatum: the restaurant or him. Stunned when she refuses to
consider such a ridiculous demand, he’s forced to come to terms with his own
selfish tendencies. Hoping to repair the damage he’s done, he concocts a new
beer inspired by her, using a recipe for a classic German-style Kölch. He
crafts the final product using a special ingredient designed to catch Elle’s
attention. It does. But not necessarily the way he’d planned.

“Adjunct
Lovers” fills in the story begun in LIGHTSTRUCK, and provides a closer look at
Ross’s and Elle’s complex personalities as they make their sexy way toward
happily ever after—with the help of a very special brew.

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The job was a hell of a lot more than
she’d bargained for—although to be fair, she had been warned by plenty of
people familiar with its daily grind. The mornings were her favorite time here.
The kitchen sparkling from the night’s cleaning, the tables bare, the chairs
flipped over on top of them. The place still held a bit of mustiness from its
many years sitting empty but they were overwhelming that with nearly three
years’ worth of their own odors—drywall, paint, floor refinishing, which were
all subsumed by the daily fact of food being prepared, served and eaten.

She and Ross had built this. It was
theirs. And yet, now it was more ‘hers’ and a lot less ‘his’. She understood
his need to get back to brewing and supported it but she missed his daily
presence, supporting her, in ways she’d never thought she would.

She moved over to the secondhand
couch, used by her and countless others for cat naps during down times, and
closed her burning eyes, marveling at what a relief it was not to be looking at
lists, recipes and spreadsheets.

Just
for a minute. Just a quick rest.

She fell into a light sleep within
seconds, dropping into an odd half dream-state, where she could still hear the
prep staff talking, laughing, slamming things around. Music suffused her
drifting brain, matching whatever had been dialed up on the streaming service
behind her.

She
felt Ross’ arms around her, cradling her, his lips at her ear, crooning to her
in his country-boy German accent. As she relaxed in his embrace, he kissed her,
sending a sharp spike of lust down her spine. Dream-Ross undressed her gently,
stroking every inch of skin he exposed, following that with his lips, tongue
and teeth. She shivered and reached for him, wanting more of him. Wanting all
of him.

But
now he was frowning at her, withdrawing. His mouth moved but she couldn’t hear
his words. He was making that crazy-ass ultimatum again. They were fighting.
Anger swirled around and between them, poisoning the pleasant eroticism of the
moment before. It wasn’t as if they’d never fought. It was more like these
arguments held an edge of real frustration as opposed to brief or imagined
aggravation. She hated it. She hated herself for being so short, so tired all
the time, so obsessed, as he liked to put it, by the damn restaurant.

“But
it was your god damned idea, Hoffman,” she reminded him in her dream. “What do
you think? I’d just open it and waltz away from the thing, letting it run
itself?”

“No,”
he said, his voice low, tight with unhappiness. “That’s not what I think.”

“Then
what do you suggest? I mean, I’m sorry if you’re feeling neglected. But I can’t
take my eyes off this. I can’t. You understood, once upon a time, but all of a
sudden you’re being a total child about it.”

Dream-Ross
reached for her, tugged her close, their naked skin warm as they wrapped
themselves around each other and fell into their bed. “I want to get married,
Elisa,” he demanded when she straddled his hips and eased herself down his long,
thick shaft with a sigh. “I want that one simple thing. Why won’t you give that
to me?” His deep blue eyes were wide, his breathing shallow. She rolled her
hips in silence, giving them the friction they both sought. “God damn it.” He
yanked her down. The ropey strands of her dreadlocks curtained them when he
jammed his tongue into her mouth, before rolling them so he was on top, the way
he preferred to come, buried deep inside her.

She
reached back and grasped the headboard, lifting her lower body up, wanting him
deeper, groaning as she came in a glorious burst of energy at the same moment
she felt him join her, releasing into her with a hoarse cry of pleasure. This
was her man, her Ross, her life. It was all she wanted, nothing more. She
opened her eyes and pressed her hand to the tight, red curls of his beard. “I
love you,” she said in a whisper.

He
frowned. “Then marry me. Today. Tomorrow. This weekend. I’m sick of waiting.”
She opened her mouth to say “yes, anything you want. Just please never leave
me.”

Someone was shaking her shoulder,
yanking her out of the half-dream, half-memory. She hadn’t been able to say
“yes” that night, either. She’d been so overwhelmed at the thought of planning
a wedding she’d started crying, so he’d held her until they’d both fallen
asleep, still skin-to-skin, sweaty and sticky. The next morning they’d had
their first massive, ugly fight. And that had been, what, a month ago now? It
felt like a million years, but also just yesterday.

Amazon
best-selling author, mom of three, Realtor, beer blogger, brewery marketing
expert, and soccer fan, Liz Crowe is a Kentucky native and graduate of the
University of Louisville currently living in Ann Arbor. She has decades of
experience in sales and fund raising, plus an eight-year stint as a
three-continent, ex-pat trailing spouse.

Her early
forays into the publishing world led to a groundbreaking fiction subgenre,
“Romance: Worth the Risk,” which has gained thousands of fans and followers
interested less in the “HEA” and more in the “WHA” (“What Happens After?”).

With
stories set in the not-so-common worlds of breweries, on the soccer pitch, in
successful real estate offices and at times in exotic locales like Istanbul,
Turkey, her books are unique and told with a fresh voice. The Liz Crowe
backlist has something for any reader seeking complex storylines with humor and
complete casts of characters that will delight, frustrate and linger in the
imagination long after the book is finished.

Don’t ever
ask her for anything “like a Budweiser” or risk bodily injury.